


if you're all done (like you said you'd be)

by valenight



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, M/M, POV Ronan Lynch, Pre-Canon, Pre-The Raven Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 02:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30115551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valenight/pseuds/valenight
Summary: "In Latin yesterday, Adam had caught Ronan in the middle of what was meant to be a furtive glance. The look that he had shot back at him was brimming with contempt, all narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. It was a kind of look that withered, that drained a thing of its last spark. If Ronan hadn’t still carried some small semblance of respect for his own life, it was a kind of look that could have killed him."the pre-trb enemies to friends fic of your dreamsfeaturing: a very repressed ronan, a mountain expedition, and noah being ghostlike
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 12
Kudos: 93





	if you're all done (like you said you'd be)

The first time that he dreamt of Adam Parrish, Ronan hadn’t even known his name. 

Up to that point, Adam had lived inside of his memory as the boy on the bicycle with the weary eyes and the lovely hands. A nice canvas upon which his mind was able to project an ideal. He was the mere concept of a person, devoid of any pain or resentment. 

Weeks before Gansey had formally introduced him to Adam, Ronan had met him somewhere inside of his mind. He appeared one night, inside of Ronan’s bedroom at Monmouth, and had sat beside him on the cool, concrete floor. 

When Ronan reached his arm out toward him, the dream version of Adam had placed his hand into his without question and had smiled gently as Ronan brushed a gentle thumb across his knuckles. 

_Nimium ne crede colori,_ this dream-Adam had told him. 

Ronan had thought this to be a strange choice of quote. He barely trusted anybody these days. And besides, the real Adam Parrish, it turned out, was incapable of existing within less than ten feet of Ronan without at least minor recoil. 

Ronan really shouldn’t have cared. It was better this way, to keep him at a distance. It was easier to let him think that Ronan hated him too. 

The two of them had formed a peculiar sort of revolution around one another, with Gansey placed between them as a buffer, ensuring that neither of them had to directly communicate with each other unless absolutely necessary. 

“I wish that you would just give him a chance, Ronan,” Gansey was telling him now, as they walked across the Aglionby courtyard. “He’s really quite likeable. I’m sure you two can manage to get along.”

Ronan scoffed. “He’s the one with the issue. You can give _him_ shit for it if you care so fucking much.” 

“Well, you haven’t exactly made things easy for him,” Gansey replied, speaking in a way that reminded Ronan far too much of his older brother. “I’m not even asking you to be _nice_ , God forbid, but perhaps you could try _civil_. I imagine that’s within your ability.”

“That’s your problem, old man. Always overestimating my abilities.” 

The truth was, Ronan had attempted civility when it came to Adam, but it had felt too much like giving himself away, so he had reverted to what he knew best: angry glares and long silences. At this point, the potential for any future amiability between the two was all but destroyed. 

In Latin yesterday, Adam had caught Ronan in the middle of what was meant to be a furtive glance. The look that he had shot back at him was brimming with contempt, all narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. It was a kind of look that withered, that drained a thing of its last spark. If Ronan hadn’t still carried some small semblance of respect for his own life, it was a kind of look that could have killed him. 

Gansey’s lecturing tone brought him back to the present. “The point is, Adam is here to stay. You can either accept that, or you can continue to sulk every time you’re in his presence.”

“Those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” Ronan said. He knew that this comment would earn him nothing but disdain, but he said it anyway. That was, alas, the nature of being Ronan Lynch. 

Gansey merely shook his head and exhaled slowly through his nose. After a few more steps, the pair had reached the end of the walkway. They lingered near the doors to the school lobby for a few moments until realization dawned upon Ronan.  
“What the hell are we standing here for?” he asked.

Gansey was spared from answering Ronan’s question by Adam, who emerged gracefully from around a corner as if following his cue in a play. “Adam,” Gansey said with a grin, “Good to see you again.”

Adam returned this pleasantry, though he sounded less sure of himself than Gansey had been. He also had apparently determined that it would not be possible to ignore Ronan while in such close proximity, because he pressed his lips into a line and turned to face him. “Lynch,” he said cooly. 

“Parrish,” Ronan replied. It was perhaps the most polite way the two had ever begun a conversation. 

Gansey glanced at each of them in rapid succession. He cleared his throat in a practiced sort of manner and then spoke. “Adam and I were planning on going to Nino’s together after last period if you would like to join us.” Sometime during the second half of his statement, he had turned his attention completely on Ronan and had begun gazing directly into his eyes, as though searching them for a reply. 

Ronan was entirely aware of what Gansey was doing by asking this question, testing his receptiveness to their previous conversation. Ronan was also entirely annoyed by this. “I’ll pass,” he said, unkindly, and turned to go back the way they had come.

He heard Adam’s resigned sigh and he walked away, but he didn’t look back.

* * *

It was well past noon and Ronan was bored out of his mind. If it weren't for it being a Sunday, he likely wouldn’t have bothered with being awake at all. 

After church, he had returned to Monmouth by himself, where he had assumed his current position on the floor. He sat propped up against a wall next to a pile of throwing darts that he had found in a corner of the basement, and launched them up at the exposed rafter beams that ran along the ceiling. He wasn’t sure whether or not Gansey would have approved of this activity, but he missed his company regardless. 

He had managed to avoid Adam almost entirely that week, which meant that he had spent the majority of the week alone. He didn’t know whether he was more jealous of Adam for taking up so much of Gansey’s attention, or if it was the other way around. Either way, he felt angry and slightly embarrassed.

From the other side of the room, the metallic door handle clanged. Ronan threw a final dart toward the sky and straightened his posture. It was by no means a respectable position, but it made him look slightly less deviant. 

The door swung open to reveal a windswept Adam Parrish. His disheveled hair matched his slightly erratic breathing.

Ronan was notably startled at this. “What the hell, Parrish?” he snapped, “Do they not teach you to knock in the middle of fucking nowhere?”

Adam’s eyes widened as they landed on Ronan. A thin sheen of sweat lined his forehead and cheeks, which were flushed faintly pink. It had not before occurred to Ronan that Adam was capable of sweating. It certainly didn’t help things.

Adam wiped his hands on his jeans in a futile attempt to straighten out his appearance. “I… Gansey said I could…” he stammered, “What are _you_ doing here?”

Ronan felt unreasonably upset at this question. “I live here, asshole,” he said. The idea that Gansey had failed to fill Adam in on this basic information was somewhat disconcerting. 

“I know _that_ ,” Adam said. “I thought you’d be at church.”

Ronan felt another jab of irritation. Adam knowing too much was somehow worse than him knowing too little. “It ended,” he said flatly.

“Oh. I had the idea that Catholic services went on for hours.”

“It feels like it sometimes,” Ronan replied, twisting one of the darts between his fingertips.

Adam’s expression turned pensive like he was filing away information for later use. “Where’s Gansey?” he asked.

“His parents set him up with a state senator’s daughter or some shit. He’s taking her _abseiling.”_ Ronan said the last bit in a somewhat offensive rendition of Gansey’s posh accent. He threw the dart in his hand up to join the others.

Adam followed the trajectory of the toss with his eyes, as though searching for something about it to criticize. He found nothing worth mentioning because he only asked, “Do you know when he’ll be back?” 

“Fuck, man, I don’t know,” Ronan replied, “I don’t live up his ass.”

Adam returned his eyes to Ronan and narrowed them, “You’re barbaric. I hope to God that no girl out there ever disrespects herself enough to date _you_.”

Usually, Ronan would have left it there, at rolled eyes and a nasty scoff, at some retort distasteful enough to end the entire exchange, but he was in a dangerous sort of mood so instead, he said, “Lucky for _her,_ I’m not interested.”

“What is that even supposed to mean?” Adam replied. He continued looking at Ronan who didn’t offer any further explanation, and then, realizing, his face changed. Trying to disguise his surprise, he said, “Oh,” somewhat awkwardly, and folded his arms across his chest.

Ronan felt a jolt of satisfaction for catching Adam off-guard, but also nerves for revealing a part of himself that he normally kept deeply buried. 

“I didn’t…” Adam started to say and then sealed his mouth shut.

“Forget it,” Ronan said and stormed from the room without another word.

* * *

The following week of classes passed without incident, apart from the typical cold stares from teachers in the hallways and Latin curses scribbled on the backs of Algebra quizzes. On Friday afternoon, Ronan yanked his locker door open to reveal a single, odd object. It was part of a game that he sometimes played with himself. He took ostensibly innocuous, yet entirely prohibited items, (a dull knife, a boxcutter, a half-empty book of matches) and carried them around school, testing to see if he could get through the day without having them confiscated. These trinkets were small enough that Ronan, even when caught, never managed to get into much real trouble, but were still strange enough to warrant suspicion. This time he had brought one of the sharp throwing darts from Monmouth. 

This particular hobby was one Gansey frowned upon. _Really Ronan, It’s like you're asking to be expelled._

While it was true Ronan hated Aglionby with a passion, he didn’t think this accusation was entirely accurate. He didn’t want to be _expelled_ exactly, he just wanted to make something happen, and although the risk he ran was slight, it was _something_. Gansey couldn't understand. He didn’t know how it felt to be a street dog at a dinner party. 

The game had become boring, anyway. Ronan wondered if school administration even bothered checking his locker anymore.

He dragged the tip of the dart across the locker door, scratching away at the metal, and heard a voice from his right.

“School property, Lynch?” Adam chided, placing books from his bag into his own locker. 

Ronan responded with a smirk and after a final twist of the dart into the metal, stuffed it into his pocket, slamming his locker shut. He looked back at Adam and felt simultaneously thrilled and irritated. He wanted Adam to leave him alone. He also wanted Adam to give him all of his attention. 

There was no way, however, that he was going to sacrifice the one card he had by breaking his silence, so he said nothing until Adam spoke again. “Is Gansey bringing you along on this mountain expedition thing Sunday?”

Ronan struggled for a moment to recall a time Gansey had mentioned such a thing. It was quite possible that he hadn’t been paying attention. Whatever it was, it probably had to do with Glendower, and Ronan was always there when it came to that, so he said, “I’m always there.” 

Adam only nodded and gently pressed his locker closed. He made a move to walk away, but stopped himself and looked back again at Ronan, his face a hesitantly scrawled question mark. 

Ronan soon understood the reason for this, as it was clear that the two of them were headed to the same place to meet Gansey, and Adam had apparently decided that it would have been more awkward for the pair to walk in the same direction a few feet apart from each other than to just go together. 

Trying his best to remain expressionless, Ronan stepped up beside him and jerked his head a bit to indicate the way toward their destination. 

They walked mostly in silence through the halls. At one point, Adam made some snide remark about a group of students from the lacrosse team that were taking turns throwing cafeteria apples against a brick wall in the courtyard, and Ronan murmured in agreement. It wasn’t quite friendly, but it was polite. It was _civil_.

Adam stared straight ahead as he walked and Ronan’s gaze floated down toward his hands. He watched long, bony fingers grip the strap of a messenger bag, and for an odd moment, imagined what might have happened if he were to reach out and brush them with his own calloused fingertips. 

Adam reached a hand up to adjust the bag on his shoulder. His sleeves were pulled up to the elbow and a dark, ugly mark spread across his left forearm. It looked as though he had banged his arm into a brick wall or fallen hard on the sidewalk. 

“Who fucked you up?” Ronan asked, pointing to the purpled bruise. “Did your piece of shit bike finally fall apart beneath you?”

It was by no means a nice thing to say, but Adam’s reaction was worse than anything Ronan had been expecting. Something behind his eyes went dead, and the rest of his body stiffened. Very quietly he said, “It’s nothing,” and tugged the sleeve of his sweater down past his wrist.

Ronan realized that he had crossed some sort of line, but couldn’t guess at what exactly it had been. He looked again toward the mark on Adam’s forearm, and for a terrible moment, considered the possibility that it had been put there with intent. 

Almost against his own will, he said, “You don’t have to be such a freak about it.” A terrible thing, truly. Sometimes, it seemed that the worst version of Ronan was the only version there was left.

Adam stopped walking. “You know what, Ronan?” he said. It was strange to hear him say the name aloud, it seemed to signal that something worse was coming. “I’ve been thinking about this, and we don’t have to be friends just because we both know Gansey. And I think I’m just going to stop trying because it’s pretty clear that we don’t like each other.”

Ronan wasn’t aware that they _were_ “trying to be friends,” but felt a slight stab in his chest anyway. Of course, Adam would have thought that he disliked him, he had no reason not to. Ronan had done a marvelous job of making himself entirely intolerable. 

“I don’t even know why I’m wasting my time with this now,” Adam said. It was clear he had taken in Ronan’s lack of expression. “What do you care, right?”

Ronan did not look him in the eye. “Right,” he replied in the harshest tone he could manage. “You can just fuck off now I guess,” he said. He thought that saying this would probably make things easier for everyone.

Adam shook his head once and exhaled through his nose like he was relieved at Ronan’s hostility. Like it all made sense.

* * *

It was remarkably easy for Ronan Lynch to stay angry about something. Once that first pang of annoyance cropped up, it lingered. He thought that there might have been something very wrong with the way that he felt rage, how it never seemed to fade with time, how it dug itself deeper, buried itself inside of his chest, and stayed for days or months until something else came along that pissed him off more. 

Proceeding an afternoon drive that was as dangerous as it was lengthy, he had returned to his bedroom where he lay flat on his back, staring at the large, gray stains that covered the ceiling above his bed. It was unclear whether they were from grease or something worse. Whatever they were made of, Ronan’s acid stare threatened to vaporize them. 

He hadn’t seen Adam since their argument last week and hadn’t stopped being angry over it. Normally, a fight left him feeling alive and powerful, awake and assured. Right now though, he just felt bad. Objectively, it made no sense for him to be upset, a problem had been solved. Adam hated him just like he should have, and now, he didn’t have to worry about being _civil_. 

“I don’t think he hates you.”

Ronan’s heart seized in surprise at the voice. He scanned his eyes across the room until they landed on Noah, who wore his half-rumpled clothing atop of skin bordering on translucent.

“Shit,” Ronan said, “Seriously, what is wrong with you?”

Noah didn’t apologize, merely lifted a shoulder, his back propped up against the wall.

Ronan’s eyes hurt a bit as they adjusted to Noah's face. Something about the way that the light in the room passed through him made him a bit difficult to look at. 

“Have you just been there watching me?” Ronan asked. It was, in part, both an accusation and a genuine question. 

Noah did his best impression of a scoff. It came out sounding more like the beginning of a laugh. “You wish.”

Ronan looked bemused. 

“What?” Noah asked, “Was that not a cool response?”

Ronan ignored this and gestured toward Noah’s Aglionby sweater. “Why are you still wearing that, man? It’s Saturday.”

Noah looked down at his outfit like he hadn’t even realized that he had it on. He said, “I always wear this.” 

Ronan didn’t have much room to speak on this, as his school uniform lay at the bottom of a mildewy pile inside of the bathroom/kitchen/laundry room. 

Noah didn’t move from his spot against the wall. It was a bit unsettling how easily he was able to minimize his movements. How his chest barely rose to keep up with his breathing.

Silence was a terrible thing when Ronan wasn’t the one in control of it. “What were you saying before?” he asked, “When you first came in here.”

Noah frowned, struggling to recall something that had happened only a minute ago. “Oh!” he said after a few seconds, “It was just that I don’t think he hates you. Adam, I mean.” It was an entirely strange thing to say, but he said it with confidence. 

“You don’t think _Adam_ hates me,” Ronan repeated. “What the hell made you say that?” he asked, sounding less sure of himself than he would have liked. He did not take well to people poking around inside his mind. 

“Hm. I don’t know. Do you care?” 

It was difficult for Ronan to respond to this as he couldn’t decide if he was more angry or confused. 

After a minute Noah added, “It’s funny, you sitting on the end of your bed like that.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Ronan replied. Angry _and_ confused.

Noah just shook his head softly, unfazed by Ronan’s tone. “It’ll be funny later, maybe.” 

“I don’t think we tell you often enough how fucking weird you are.”

* * *

The drive out to the mountain the next afternoon was a dreadfully long but uneventful affair. Any tension between Ronan and Adam was buried under Gansey’s passionate rambling about Glendower and his general excitement for the hike ahead of them. It was difficult to be in a bad mood when surrounded by Gansey’s unrelenting enthusiasm, but Ronan somehow managed. He picked at an old scab on his wrist and fantasized about smashing something.

Adam sat alone in the backseat of the Camaro, gazing out the window and speaking in brief sentences exclusively in response to questions prompted by Gansey. It was hard to tell whether he was staring vacantly or if he was deeply engrossed in thought. Although, with Adam, it was almost certainly the latter.

Ronan caught a glimpse of his collarbone in the rearview mirror once and it only made his mood worse. He quickly averted his eyes and pressed them closed. 

When the car finally stopped, Ronan was the first one out of it, slamming the passenger side door behind him in one swift gesture. Sitting in a car for so long without driving had proved to be incredibly irritating. He found a large rock a few feet apart from the mountain base and kicked around the bottom of it while Gansey and Adam discussed their next steps. 

“I’m going to search the base of the mountain,” Gansey said, eyes on his handheld EMF reader, “Could you two see if there’s a passage upward?”

Ronan and Adam eyed each other briefly. It was clear that both of them wanted nothing less than to be left alone together and it was also clear that both of them were too loyal to Gansey to refuse him.

Ronan huffed in agreement and began to walk in the opposite direction. After a moment, Adam trailed off behind him but maintained a few good feet of distance.

They walked in relative silence for several minutes and paid each other no mind as Ronan tore leaves from branches in fistfuls and Adam kept his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. The only noise that remained between the two was an occasional sigh from Adam, and, every few feet, the sound of Ronan kicking at discarded pine cones. 

About ten minutes into their hike, Ronan turned to find that Adam was no longer behind him. He scanned the surrounding area and saw him standing by a small gap in the rock, a natural opening among the trees and earth. 

“Look at this,” he called out. He was studying the space very intently, as though he was going to be quizzed on it later. 

Ronan walked over to meet him and looked up to see a sort of ramp formed from dirt and stone. He looked to Adam for some sort of confirmation, but Adam just stepped past him and started climbing without another word. 

Ronan followed his lead, noticing the way Adam’s knuckles tightened around a piece of rock, how his eyes remained fixated at the top, at his goal. He wondered for a moment if they should go any higher without Gansey, but didn’t care to be the one expressing any sort of caution. 

When the pair reached a large plateau, Adam stopped to survey the area. With his hands on his hips, he leaned out to peer down toward the base of the mountain. The short sleeves of his t-shirt did nothing to cover the now greenish bruise on his left arm. Ronan wanted to throw something. 

He reached down at the ground near his foot and grabbed a fist-sized rock, he tossed it as hard as he could off the side of the mountain. 

Adam turned and watched Ronan for a few seconds. “Why do you even do this?” he asked. 

Ronan picked up another rock and threw it further down the gap. “I like the sound it makes at the bottom.” 

Adam rolled his eyes. “Not that. I mean why are you even here right now?”

“Gansey asked me to be here.”

“Why do you bother with all the Glendower stuff though?” Adam said, “I know Gansey believes it’s his life’s purpose or whatever, but why do _you_ care?” he sounded genuinely curious rather than annoyed, and was looking at Ronan more intently than he ever had before.

Ronan shrugged. “It’s not about me.”

Adam picked up a rock himself and turned it over in his hand a few times before tossing it down after Ronan’s. “It seems like a lot of work to do all this stuff without a real reason,” he said. In a quieter voice, he added, “You obviously have the time though.”

Ronan’s tone betrayed his growing irritation. “I already told you my reason,” he said, “Gansey asked me to.”

Adam frowned a bit while he thought. “I guess it’s hard to imagine you caring about anything besides yourself.”

Ronan scoffed. “Well I guess you just don’t know me that well,” he turned and leveled his gaze at Adam, looking him in the eye for the first time all day, “It’s not like we’re friends.” 

Adam looked briefly chastened but did not immediately respond. “We should go find Gansey,” he said.

The way down the mountainside turned out to be more treacherous than the hike up to it. The incline was steep and narrow, and with every step forward, the promise of the ground below seemed to dissipate. 

Ronan lost his footing on a pile of rubble and braced himself for the unforgiving impact of his body landing upon rock. 

In an instant, Adam’s hand was gripping his arm. He was stronger than Ronan had thought and held him up against himself and the wall of earth behind him. Ronan looked down at his arm and then up at Adam’s eyes. 

The two boys stared at one another with a mixture of surprise and caution. Ronan had the sudden thought that, somehow, they might have been very afraid of each other. 

Adam released his hold on Ronan’s arm and wiped his palm on his shirt. “Let’s keep going.” 

* * *

Very rarely did somebody knock on the metal door that stood before the second floor to Monmouth Manufacturing. Gansey was hyper-vigilant about keeping his keys on hand at all times, Ronan never entered any room announced, and Noah always seemed to already be inside. 

So, when the knock came Monday evening, there were only a handful of people who it could have been. Some friend of Gansey’s from the rowing team, although these friends were rarely ever bold enough to come by Monmouth on their own, or Declan, who generally tried to remain as far away from Ronan as possible. 

That left Adam Parrish. 

Ronan resisted the urge to groan and opened the door. “Gansey’s not here,” he said. 

Adam gave him a pointed look, “I wanted to talk to you, actually.” 

Without further comment, Ronan began to walk back to his bedroom, leaving the door hanging open behind him. 

Ronan sat down on the edge of his bed and looked up at Adam, who lingered awkwardly near the doorframe. After a few seconds, he sat down beside him. 

“Here to apologize?” Ronan sneered. 

Adam scoffed. “Not exactly. I just…” he looked up toward the stain on the ceiling, absentmindedly pressing each of his fingertips together. “I think that we could try a bit harder,” he said, “to be friendly with each other at least. Just for Gansey’s benefit.” 

Ronan opened his mouth to repeat, “For Gansey’s benefit,” but he knew that it would have been a lie. He pressed his lips together, struggling to come up with something cruel to say instead. In the end, he just echoed Adam’s words, “We could try.” 

Adam raised the corner of his mouth slightly, it wasn’t quite a smile, but it could get there. 

It felt like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I've always had so many ideas about Ronan and Adam's dynamic pre-trb so I finally decided to compile my thoughts here. 
> 
> The title of this is from Whatever (Folk Song in C) by Elliot Smith which is honestly a must for all pynch playlists. 
> 
> I'd love to hear from you over on my [tumblr](https://valenight.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> (I'm also working on a pynch the starless sea au that should be starting sometime soon so stay tuned if that is something you'd be interested in!)


End file.
